Jean nodded.
They were crossing the wide bridge over Tweed and she stopped and, leaning her arms on the parapet, gazed up at Peel Tower.
"Let's look at Peel for a little," she said. "It's been there such a long time and must have seen so many people trying to do their best and only succeeding in making mischief. It seems to say, 'Nothing really matters: you'll all be in the tod's hole in less than a hundred years. I remain, and the river and the hills.'"
"Yes," said Pamela, "they are a great comfort, the unchanging things—these placid round-backed hills, and the river and the grey town—to us restless mortals…. Look, Jean, I want you to tell me if you think this miniature is at all like Duncan Macdonald. You remember I asked you to let me have that snapshot of him that you said was so characteristic and I sent it to London to a woman I know who does miniatures well. I thought his mother would like to have it. But you must tell me if you think it good enough."
Jean took the miniature and looked at the pictured face, a laughing boy's face, fresh-coloured, frank, with flaxen hair falling over a broad brow.
When, after a minute, she handed it back she assured Pamela that the likeness was wonderful.
"She has caught it exactly, that look in his eyes as if he were telling you it was 'fair time of day' with him. Oh, dear Duncan! It's fair time of day with him now, I am sure, wherever he is…. He was twenty-two when he fell three years ago…. You've often heard Mrs. Macdonald speak of her sons. Duncan was the youngest by a lot of years—the baby. The others are frighteningly clever, but Duncan was a lamb. They all adored him, but he wasn't spoiled…. Life was such a joke to Duncan. I can't even now think of him as dead. He was so full of abounding life one can't imagine him lying still—quenched. You know that odd little poem:
"'And Mary's the one that never liked angel stories,
And Mary's the one that's dead….'
Death and Duncan seem such a long way apart. Many people are so dull and apathetic that they never seem more than half alive, so they don't leave much of a gap when they go. But Duncan—The Macdonalds are brave, but I think living to them is just a matter of getting through now. The end of the day will mean Duncan. I am glad you thought about getting the miniature done. You do have such nice thoughts, Pamela."
The Macdonalds' manse stood on the banks of Tweed, a hundred yards or so below Peel Tower, a square house of grey stone in a charming garden.